The Instruments of Darkness: A Thriller

Chapter XXI

Because I had time on my hands and didn’t like wasting it, I returned to Rosemont and rang the doorbell of Mrs. Gammett, Colleen’s neighbor. She answered almost before the bell stopped, which meant she’d been watching my arrival from the window. She invited me inside, but offered no hospitality beyond a chair. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a lot to add to what I already knew, and I didn’t know much. She was also, it was plain, not only deaf but profoundly deaf, yet it was her deafness that made one of her observations interesting.

“If Colleen took the child,” said Mrs. Gammett, “how did she get him away from the house?”

“Her car?” I suggested—shouted, actually.

“Mr. Parker, I struggle to make conversation even with my hearing aids in place, and I don’t sleep with them at night, but even I could hear Colleen’s damn car start. I’ve been telling her and her fool husband for months that it needs a new muffler, but they never did get around to doing something about it, and now they have other things on their mind. The question stands: If Colleen took Henry—and I don’t believe she did—then either she carried him from the house, or he’s still on the property. If not, whoever took him didn’t have a car with a busted exhaust.”

“What about her husband’s vehicle?”

“That was parked out at the Jetport, as far as I’m aware.”

“Did you mention any of this to the police?”

“I told them I didn’t hear Colleen’s car start up, but I don’t think they believed I could hear anything at all, so who knows how much got through to them. At least my deafness isn’t selective.”

“And the neighbors?” I said. “Can you tell me about them?”

“Any neighbors in particular?” She grinned crookedly. “I saw you talking earlier with Alison Piucci and that doughboy Roback. Didn’t look like you got very far with them.”

“I didn’t get any distance at all. Is there something going on between them?”

“Roback wishes, but then he’d probably try to fuck me, given half a chance. Piucci plays along because she likes the attention, but if he ever got out of line with her, she’d cut his dick off and leave it in a box for the mailman, addressed to somewhere in Alaska.”

I think my jaw might have dropped open, but I managed to close it again before she noticed.

“And Roback’s wife?”

“Come again?”

I tried once more, with better results.

“I feel sorry for her,” she said. “And even him, too, in moments of weakness. He’s a lecher, but they want a child so badly. That may be why they’ve turned against Colleen with such a vengeance.”

Just like Stephen Clark’s brother and sister-in-law, I thought.

“Which leaves Alison Piucci,” I said.

“Piucci is the local alpha female: chair of every committee, the first person to knock on your door if you forget to take in your trash container after collection. She regarded Colleen as weak and inconsequential. Having her locked up would be like thinning the herd of its runt, as far as Piucci is concerned.”

“Is that all?”

“Maybe she has her eye on Colleen’s husband, too. They’re both conceited, and both dull as a wet Tuesday in February. They’d make the perfect couple, but”—Mrs. Gammett fixed me with her stare—“I doubt either the Robacks or Alison Piucci hate one or both of the Clarks enough to hurt their child.”

She didn’t have anything else to add, so I thanked her and prepared to leave. She walked me to the door and indicated the Fulcis, who were standing in Colleen’s yard taking the late-afternoon air.

“Friends of yours?” she asked.

“Fortunately, yes. I wouldn’t want them as enemies.”

“They must have hurt like hell coming out of their mother. I hope it was worth it for her.”

“She seems very fond of them.”

“Well, too late now, I guess,” said Mrs. Gammett, as she closed the door. “However much it hurt pushing them out, it would hurt a shit load more trying to push them back in…”